Perge Theater Head

Perge Theater Head

The Perge Theater Head, circa 290 CE, was looted from Perge, an archaeological site along the southwest Mediterranean coast of Türkiye. It was one of two similar heads smuggled together, eventually ending up in the Shelby White collection.

Perge (also known as Perga) was originally a Lycian settlement that became a Greek city within the province of Pamphylia. It then became the capital of the Roman province of Pamphylia Secunda, located in today's Turkish province of Antalya. The ruins lie approximately 15 kilometers east of modern Antalya.

According to the Manhattan District Attorney's Office, as well as Western and Turkish archaeological experts, Perge was heavily looted in the late 1960s. This is at or around the same time as other sites, such as Bubon, were targeted for their Roman-era sculptures and other antiquities. A research article (Goette, H. R. (2020). Nochmals zur Statue des Trajan auf Samos ein Beitrag zu umgearbeiteten Kaiserbildnissen mit Kranzen. JdI 135, 2020, 163–236) suggested that the heads matched the bodies of statues already in the Antalya Museum.

The Perge Theatre Head first surfaced on the art market at a Sotheby’s auction in 2000. It then resurfaced at Christie’s in 2012, when a private collector purchased it and loaned it to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It remained there until it was seized by the Manhattan District Attorney's office in January 2023 as part of a sweeping criminal investigation of objects looted from Türkiye.

1

Sculpture – statues, carvings, bronzes, reliefs, figurines

Roman

Sotheby's

Christie's

An anonymous collector purchased it at Christie's in 2012

Metropolitan Museum of Art

Türkiye

Damien Huffer

Jason Felch

Michela Herbert